Why Social Games Are Marketing’s Next Frontier. I read an interesting book recently, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World written by Jane McGonagall. Here are a few of the useful takeaways on using social games.
Growth in gaming
“[Al]though a typical gamer plays for just an hour or two a day, there are now more than five million ‘extreme’ gamers in the U.S. who play an average of 45 hours a week. To put this in perspective, the number of hours that gamers world-wide have spent playing “World of Warcraft” alone adds up to 5.93 million years.”
Impacts of gaming
“In a good game, we feel blissfully productive. We have clear goals and a sense of heroic purpose. More important, we’re constantly able to see and feel the impact of our efforts on the virtual world around us. . . . One recent study found, for example, that players of ‘Guitar Hero’ are more likely to pick up a real guitar and learn how to play it.”
Learning persistence
“Research shows that gamers spend on average 80% of their time failing in game worlds, but instead of giving up, they stick with the difficult challenge and use the feedback of the game to get better.”
Building relationships
“Studies show that we like and trust someone better after we play a game with them—even if they beat us. And we’re more likely to help someone in real life after we’ve helped them in an online game. It’s no wonder that 40% of all user time on Facebook is spent playing social games.”
These takeaways support our position on the importance of games and gaming as the next important customer engagement technique. Consider these points in evaluating why games are so valuable:
Games can be combined … with rewards which permits fueling loyalty
Advertising, like other marketing elements … is moving from eyeballs to engagement
Social games … fit all platforms
Games have shown ability … to draw large communities
Brands can become … a component of game experience
Games aren’t limited … to just the virtual world
Lots of reasons to add games to your social media commerce and marketing campaigns, don’t you think?
Please share a social media commerce gaming experience with us.
Read more:
8 Popular Social Media Initiatives for Customer Engagement
Social Commerce Business … What Ben and Jerry’s Knows That You Should Know
12 Ways to Build Social Commerce Business through Great Customer Service